Discussions

Macromedia has released version 1.5 of Flex. Flex 1.5 improvement include improved data display and visualization, more versatile skinning and styling, additional new deployment platforms, and enhanced performance.

Features

Charting components: The charting components were available to beta customers with Flex 1.0, and are now entirely integrated in the programming model.

New List Components (HorizontalList and TileList). In addition to the List component, you can now use HorizontalList and TileList to scroll through a data set. HorizontalList and TileList provide much better performance compared to the Repeater approach used in 1.0, especially when manipulating large data sets.

New stylable properties. There is now a lot more you can do with styles to customize the look-and-feel of your application.

Runtime Shared Libraries (RSL): You can now package classes and assets in runtime libraries that can be shared accross applications.

Integration with Central: You can now build Central applications using Flex.

I think it's a very interesting programming model. But its a pretty particular project that expects to gain so much from just the presentation tier that it can maintain that it's 12.000 $ well-spent.In other words: I wont be studying Flex since I don't expect any opportunities of using it.Pity.

I totally agree that $12,000 is ridiculous to ask for what Flex has to offer. If you still want to do RIA development, you should take a look at Flash MX 2004 Pro. The MX 2004 version is built on the new ActionScript 2.0, which is very, very close to Java. I am in the process of migrating a pretty complex (functionality wise) applet over to Flash. You can use Flash to retrieve data from your servlets/web services and send data back to the server. I seriously think this is the answer to RIA and applet if more web/Java developers know about it.

The MX 2004 version is built on the new ActionScript 2.0, which is very, very close to Java. I am in the process of migrating a pretty complex (functionality wise) applet over to Flash. You can use Flash to retrieve data from your servlets/web services and send data back to the server. I seriously think this is the answer to RIA and applet if more web/Java developers know about it.

I hate typing Java in Notepad even I do know Java pretty well. Much less I like typing JScript, ActionScript, whatever without code completion, list of method signatures, and easy code navigation (Jump to implementation Ctl+B)

Those things I must have for productive work. Are they available for ActionScript?

ActionScript and OO are relatively new to the Flash world. Most developers are still the creative kind, so there are not too many editors, and IDEs that support ActionScript 2.0. The only ones out there I could find are:

I admit that it is lacking in the tools area, but ActionScript support is very new in Flash, just like Java back in the early days. It will take application developers to really start using it to get vendors to look at providing IDEs and smart editors.

Can someone point me to Flash app, which:* scales when browser window is resized;* at very least, has its own control setting for font size or at best, is hooked up to browser font size event;* can be operated with keyboard only;* has print preview for documents which it shows;

Is it possible at all:* to have drag-and-drop from/to native apps?* to have access to client filesystem?* to have access to client devices?* to have access to client settings, like locale, date/time format, money format, color scheme, fonts, etc?

Why Flash plugin can show movies with ease, but moving a window brings back memories about Windows 3.0 on 286 machine?

What is needed to run Flash app without browser? Do I have to pay to get this "browserless plugin"?

Can someone point me to Flash app, which:* scales when browser window is resized;*

Technically speaking Flash supports scaling/resizing/liquid layouts. It is up to developers/designers to use it.There is plenty of web sites which does not scale!(hate it myself) What can we expect from Flash? :((

IMO, the best Rich client possible is XWindow server(that runs on client machine btw )Second comes Java Appet (Thinlet, SwixML for XML lovers). IMO Sun MUST ENABLE Java Web Start for Applets. Today support for Applets in JWS is very very very strange.If it was fixed and Applets will be in JWS supervision that would be slick and killer RIA.

Today support for Applets in JWS is very very very strange.If it was fixed and Applets will be in JWS supervision that would be slick and killer RIA.

Firewalls and proxies may prevent applets from loading, I experience it myself. Wrong JRE or its absence prevents applets from running. On the other hand, Flash can be killed only by removing the plugin, which is not an easy task with MSIE ;-)

I don't know about hard numbers, but Flash is percieved to be more robust, at least on startup, than applets. And even if client does not have Flash at all or has older version, installing new Flash plugin is a breeze, which cannot be said about Java plugin.

I've been playing with Thinlet recently. Very nice! I am surprised it doesn't get more attention. Combination of Thinlet + Hessian to speak to the back end is compelling. 2 tools that just do what it says on the tin.

Hi Michael,There are a variety of app over the internet and I think the following app I create over a year ago can you show most of the things that you want to see, check it out at:http://www.carlosrovira.com/projects/flashvisio/flashVisio.swfthis was created with Flash MX and ActionScript 1.0 in early 2003. Now Flash MX 2004 and Flex brings more things to RIAs.

Wow, that is a nice one. Where do you store the data, on your server? Can Flash apps access client filesystem?

Can someone point me to Flash app, which:* scales when browser window is resized;* at very least, has its own control setting for font size or at best, is hooked up to browser font size event;* can be operated with keyboard only;* has print preview for documents which it shows;Is it possible at all:* to have drag-and-drop from/to native apps?* to have access to client filesystem?* to have access to client devices?* to have access to client settings, like locale, date/time format, money format, color scheme, fonts, etc?Why Flash plugin can show movies with ease, but moving a window brings back memories about Windows 3.0 on 286 machine?What is needed to run Flash app without browser? Do I have to pay to get this "browserless plugin"?

* scales when browser window is resized this feature can be enabled in html.* at very least, has its own control setting for font size or at best, is hooked up to browser font size event; The font related setting is controlled in flash.* can be operated with keyboard only; Flash app supports accessibility.* has print preview for documents which it shows I'm not sure.

scales when browser window is resized&nbsp;&nbsp;this feature can be enabled in html.

This might be a little misleading. In normal HTML apps, the font size, images, etc will stay the same when the browser is resized. The only thing that changes is the amount of space separating the various elements in the layout. However, with Flash if you specify that the flash component should take 100% of both the width and height in the HTML <embed> tag, the result is that *everything* (font, images, etc) increases/decreases in size in response to the browser being resized.

scales when browser window is resized&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;this feature can be enabled in html.

This might be a little misleading. In normal HTML apps, the font size, images, etc will stay the same when the browser is resized. The only thing that changes is the amount of space separating the various elements in the layout. However, with Flash if you specify that the flash component should take 100% of both the width and height in the HTML <embed> tag, the result is that *everything* (font, images, etc) increases/decreases in size in response to the browser being resized.Not exactly what I think the original poster was looking for.

Flash can do flexible layouts but most animator types don't know how or aren't interested in that. The only site I've seen lately using it is http://www.nranews.com which has several content areas that flow differently according to browser size.

Flash can do flexible layouts but most animator types don't know how or aren't interested in that. The only site I've seen lately using it is http://www.nranews.com which has several content areas that flow differently according to browser size.

The right pane is resized with browser window which is good, but text does not flow well in some places, like two-column design with fixed column sizes. And again, they provide live video, but at the same time window movement is dead slow.

Anyway, this website shows some better use of Flash to create rich web interface. And after being pointed to SharedObject to save state locally (thanks Carlos), I am starting to like Flash more :)

I've been hoping to use a RIA tool like Flex, Laszlo, Thinlets or Droplets instead of DHTML for a while. I haven't had time to do a deep study or anything, but so far I see the field something like this...

Flex:-- pros: small runtime, (other things noted in his thread already), one "JavaScript" version to support (ActionScript)-- cons: $$ pricy, vendor lock-in

Laszlo:-- pros: slow-- cons: open source, less mature ActionScript than in Flex, Less tightly integrated with Flash (after all, Flex is Macromedia too)

Thinlets:-- pros: open source, XUL (standard), no scripts just Java-- cons: why is it one Class? (that scares my boss and me too), if Java's not on the client already they better have a good fat connection

Droplets:-- pros: no scripts just Java, professional support-- cons: vendor lock-in, if Java's not on the client already they better have a good fat connection

None of them is a slam dunk.

...(sorry but I need to rant)

The part about having to download Java really irks me. For cry'n out loud, we still can't rely on averyone having at least Java 1.1 !?? Sheesh. And, yes, apparently this is a real concern for my customer. It's not so much that installing is pain but that factions in my customer cannot agree on anything except "all computers come with web browsers". I don't think they understand version numbers and such. Explaining that supporting multiple browsers basically means writing multiple front ends just gets a blank stare.

Maybe more important is that there seems to be a paradigm issue going on too. The idea that enterprise applications have web app front ends that run in browsers is so pervasive that it's hard to shake. Of course the notion that an application UI should be responsive is also pervasive. My client is used to fat clients with lots of interactive widgets, so there is always a desire to see that in the web apps too. I've had some success with remote scripting via iframes, but it always feels like a kludge.

Writing DHTML for multiple browsers is s l o w a n d t e d i o u s. For what I do I can't just use drag and drop goodies in Dreamweaver or something. Basically everything is from scratch. I hate to think what I'll have to retrofit when Longhorn comes out.

I need RIA. If anyone has strategies to help sell it please let me know.

SwixML -pros: full power of Swing;-cons: need Swing support on client;

All Applet based solutions:-cons: No reliable cashing on client; No support from JavaWebStart, Sun, Please Please Please fix it. If applets were reliably cacheable by JWS it would be killer approach where app is frequently used and JRE downloading is acceptable!

Good stuff.Could you clear up "reliable caching" for me? Do you mean that there isn't support for realiable knowing when a new version of the client is available from a server?,boz

All things get cached on client by browser in a cache of unknown size that sometimes means that a thing will be loaded all over again even it did not change on server ( lets say, clean-on-exit cache setting on client).

There is no way (almost) to say that this particular applet (flash) is my favorite application and it has to live cached on disk unless it has changed on server. That is JavaWebStart is meant for, but unfortunately JWS does not support applets as parts of a web page ( it uses Applet Starter to run them as standalone applications and doc says that such support is to help migrate applets to JWS applications).

We've also added what we call the Nexaweb Desktop Client. This is a desktop installed client which is conceptually like an installed version of the web browser hosted Nexaweb client. A user can run the same Nexaweb app from both web browser and desktop client; the desktop client provides more integration with the desktop at the cost of a desktop installed thing. Also enable code caching.

See the Nexaweb sponsored whitepaper 'Enterprise Web Apps: Alternatives to Swing' for more of my thoughts on this; the paper gives a good overview - IMO - of the architecture differences. I'm happy to slug up the details in a different thread (not fair to completely usurp a thread on Flex).

Cons: not free (as in beer); needs at least Java 1.1 on client.

Thank you for your patience for two blantant pitches (product and whitepaper).

I've been hoping to use a RIA tool like Flex, Laszlo, > Thinlets or Droplets instead of DHTML for a while. I haven't> had time to do a deep study or anything, but so far I see > the field something like this...

What about the Luxor XML UI Language (XUL) toolkit that supports Swing UIs and Eclipse UIs, for example?

Also as far as I know there are many more Java XUL toolkits besides Thinlets and Luxor e.g. SwiXml, xWidglets, XPML, XMLFace, etc.

For the rest, XUL is a specific XML application created by Mozilla (at that time part of TW/AOL). Luxor (Mr. Bauer's project) is a half assed attempt to implement that spec. I guess that he has done his best, but still it is a small subset of what the Mozilla XUL spec describes.

I guess that this is the reason that he maintains that every ui that uses XML as resource description language can be called XUL. But then what about calling each IDE IDEA; or each web container Tomcat?

Also please do not mislead people by mixing different XML UI definition concepts:1. XUL as a set of 'standard' XML definitions for 'standard' set of UI widgets. 2. XML UI descriptors for a particular UI framework (SwixML for Swing as one example)

Have you take a look at Flash 2004 MX Professional? I was also looking for a RIA solution to replace applet and I think the latest version of Flash (not Flex) is it. Flex is cool but it costs $12,000. And Flash plug-in penetration is like 98%.

I did write a small application using MX (not MX 2004 though).I found the Flash programming model quite confusing: I can't see an overview of the code I've written. Only when I give the right subwindow focus does my code appear. It worked but I did find it quite confusing.That's why the Flex setup would be so interesting: it fixes exactly these issues. If it wasn't for it's prohibitary price....

I totally agree with you. Flex is exactly what Java developers need, except the price tag will only attract a few corporate clients.

You should take a look at MX 2004 Professional as it has ActionScript 2.0 - which is very close to the Java language. For example, you can write classes and each class file can be an external file. I agree that the Flash programming model is very confusing to the Java developer (timeline, MovieClip, etc.). But once you overcome the learning curve, it is not that bad. I am still struggling with it (and swearing at it) but it is getting better :-).

Why XML? Keeping UI initialization code in separate file is enough.I can code all shortcut functions in code and have nice text file that describes UI: it is not XML, it is simply Java source where tons of help available from IDEs - code completion, hints, syntax control etc.

Do not forget that Swing comes with predefined skinnability: Look-and-Feel packages. So, what is the need for XML?

Is there some kind of developer edition for Flex to allow us to get into contact with Flex ? Its all very nice to have something like Flex but i dont think such a technology would grow in the industry if it is not made available to a wider audience.

It's available on CD.. There doesn't appear to be any way to download the developer version.I personally think macromedia would get a lot more people interested if they made it downloadable. I know I'm interested, but just can't be bothered going through the pain of jumping through hoops to get a CD sent out.regards,Nathan Lee

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